


Twice in a Lifetime

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [26]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 04:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7154456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Rodney first met at summer camp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Endless Summer Nights

Rodney is under no delusions: his parents sent him to summer camp in Virginia so they wouldn't have to look at him all day while he wasn't in school. Despite his brief stint in the Fort McMurray Eager Beavers and his subsequent study of its field manual, he's really not the outdoorsy type. He's better suited for pianos and concert halls or the stages of world-class theaters or the laboratories at CERN, not...  
  
Here. Wherever here is. In Virginia, obviously. Up a mountain, surrounded by pine trees, staring at a cluster of log cabins, with his backpack at his feet, and knowing that he's here for two weeks. They will be the longest two weeks of his life. At least Jeannie got to stay in town with Aunt Martha, who would play with her and bake cookies for her and look the other way when she did higher math and demonstrated that she, too, was smarter than her own parents.  
  
The whole camp thing will be awful, and Rodney will hate it. But then he spots another boy, tall and slender, leaning against a tree, rebel without a cause. He has crazy hair and bright eyes and a goofy little smirk. He's handsome and effortlessly stylish and judging by the way some of the other boys gather around him, he's popular. He's super hot. Rodney hopes they don't end up in a cabin together, because he really couldn't cope.  
  
In the strangest turn of events, super hot boy is named John Sheppard, and he's actually...nice. He's only just met and charmed most of the boys who follow him around, but three of them - Mitch, Dex, Holls - are his best friends, and they want to be Air Force pilots together. John includes Rodney early on, asks questions about his life in Canada, seems genuinely interest in some of the physics Rodney wants to pursue when he's older. He even looks like he might understand some of it, but Rodney knows that's just wishful thinking.  
  
Given John's trendy jeans and impractical Converse sneakers, Rodney expects him to be some kind of city-slicker (hints dropped by his best friends indicate John's family has a lot f money), so Rodney is surprised when John is competent at pretty much everything their camp counselors make them do: tracking, chopping firewood, canoeing, starting campfires, cooking over campfires, archery.  
  
Rodney knows he's in trouble when John gets close up behind him to show him how to hold his bow and arrow properly. Mitch, Dex, and Holls (short for Holland, Rodney learns) are really good shots but not patient enough to help Rodney or any of the other boys who struggle.  
  
So Rodney gets why people like John. He's smart and funny and good-looking, but most of all he's decent. He acquiesces to calling Rodney 'McKay' pretty early on, because Rodney can't help the way he blushes when one of the counselors looked at the roll and said, "Meredith? That can't be right. Maybe someone mixed up registration from the girl's camp." Some of the other boys try to rib Rodney about it, but John stops them by simply calling him McKay after Rodney asks him to.  
  
It's hard to be jealous of the way John's so effortlessly good at everything he tries, because he's so damn nice. He laughs at Rodney's jokes (he's the only one who laughs about Heisenberg being pulled over by a cop) and he picks Rodney first when they play games. When they're in the arts and crafts cabin, John can braid leather like nobody's business. He finishes off his bracelet before everyone else and then, before Rodney knows what's what, reaches out and fastens it around Rodney's wrist.  
  
"There," John says, smiling. "That's better."  
  
Rodney, still fumbling with some hemp and beads, blushes again. "I – I don't have anything for you."  
  
John shrugs. "It's not a contest, McKay."  
  
And when Rodney keeps fumbling, John reaches out and tangles his fingers with Rodney and then Rodney's making an actual bracelet, and together they pick out some beads Jeannie will like.  
  
That night, after dinner, Rodney hands John his black wristband, the one with _Kirk & Spock Forever_ stitched inside where no one can see.  
  
"What's this for?" John asks, and he's genuinely confused.  
  
"For you," Rodney says.  
  
John grins and puts it on and never takes it off and never tells his three best friends what he has to know is written inside of it.

Rodney thinks he might just be okay with this whole summer camp thing when Mitch and Dex announce, after lights out while their cabin leader is meeting the other cabin leaders, that there's one last big camp tradition they have to do before they all go home in two days.  
  
They have to sneak out and go to the girl's camp over the next ridge and throw a stupid party. A little bit of drinking, a lot of making out.  
  
They're only fourteen. Drinking is an incredibly stupid choice. Rodney has his precious brain cells to think about. They're all he has so he can rescue himself and Jeannie from the oblivious adults who live in the house with them.  
  
Rodney's heart breaks just a little when John says, "Sure. Mitch, Dex, you take point. Holls, you take the rear. We'll do recon tomorrow and then meet after lights out, all right?"  
  
They all answer him the way corporals would a captain, and Rodney has trouble falling asleep. But he doesn't want to seem weird, so he goes along with the plan, helping John do recon – like this is some kind of military exercise – and then he goes through with it, sneaking out with the others after dark. It's chilly and he wishes he'd brought his jacket and then John puts an arm around his shoulders and drags him close so they can share warmth, and then the other boys are getting further and further ahead and Rodney is slowing them down, getting them lost –  
  
And then John says, "They won't even notice we're missing. C'mon." He tugs Rodney off the suspiciously well-worn trail to the girl's camp and off in the trees, down below where anything might be visible from the campgrounds, is a little camp – ring of stones for a fire, a blanket, and some whittled spears and marshmallows.  
  
"What are we doing?" Rodney hisses.  
  
"Having our own party." John grins at him in the darkness, lights a small fire, and Rodney gets it.  
  
They hold hands and roast marshmallows and talk for hours. John's mom died when he was fourteen, and his dad has plans for him, and John has plans for himself. Rodney will be starting college at sixteen, knows he's headed for a Nobel prize, but mostly he wants to be sure he has enough money so Jeannie can go to school too, because she's so bright.  
  
When Rodney finally gets his nerve up to kiss John, it all goes to hell. Their gazes lock. They lean in. Rodney's lips are tingling because John is staring at them. And then they kiss.   
  
It's two microseconds of heaven before a shout shatters the night.  
  
"What the hell is going on here?"  
  
It's Martinson, the camp director.   
  
Behind him are the other camp counselor sand all of John's friends, and Mitch and Dex and Holls are mouthing _sorry_ over and over and over again.  
  
Rodney's aunt is called, John's parents are called, and they're bundled off into separate cars two days before camp ends.   
  
Rodney never sees Mitch, Dex, or Holls again.  
  
He is surprised, decades later, when he sees John Sheppard standing beside the helicopter that is going to take Rodney across the ice to the greatest technological find of a lifetime. He and John pretend not to know each other (regs, DADT), and after that first flight, rarely see each other, because John doesn't have security clearance. But Rodney hears what happened to John, disobeyed orders in A-stan trying to save his best friends Mitch, Dex, and Holland, sent to McMurdo as punishment before they kick him out of the Air Force. And Rodney notices that John is still wearing that black wristband on his right wrist, and when John sits down in the Ancient control chair, Rodney doesn't protest too much, because for some reason, he's not surprised when it lights right up.


	2. Odds of You and Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Twice in a Lifetime."

"What are the odds, do you think?" John asked. He sat beside Rodney on a log beneath a tree on an alien planet. Teyla and Halling and their new alien friends were using borrowed marine labor to organize a feast to celebrate this historical meeting between their peoples.  
  
"Odds of what?"  
  
"Odds of you and me, meeting up again after all these years," John said. He'd recognized Rodney the instant he saw him waiting at the tiny airport on the ice, knew those blue eyes and that square jaw and that perfect, crooked, soft, utterly kissable mouth.  
  
"You could calculate them better than I could." Rodney slewed him a sidelong glance. "You were always smarter than you let on."  
  
"Not so smart I didn't get busted down to McMurdo."  
  
"Smart enough to agree to come here." Rodney tilted his head back to gaze at the alien sky.  
  
 _Alien sky._ John hoped that fact would never stop being cool. He smiled up at the stars.  
  
Rodney shifted beside him. "Listen, Major, I know your country has ridiculous backwards regulations for how you live your personal life while you're sticking your neck on the line for your country –"  
  
John looked down at the black wristband he'd worn every day for what seemed like forever. "Tell you what, Doctor. I won't be as easy as Kirk if you don't be as cold and unfeeling as Spock."  
  
"I – oh. _Oh._ Okay. I'd be willing to give that a try."  
  
John glanced at him, saw he was smiling ever so faintly. "The odds of you and me, twice in a lifetime? About one versus however many stars are out there."  
  
"That's a lot of stars," Rodney said, and he sounded a little dazed.  
  
John stood up.  
  
"Hey, wait, where are you going?"  
  
John stretched, cast a glance around. Everyone was distracted. Good. "Nowhere. Just doing a brief bit of recon."  
  
"Recon? What for?"  
  
"Next time I promise to have marshmallows for roasting, but in the meantime –" John sat down beside Rodney again, closer this time. "I think I want to pick up where we left off at summer camp." And he leaned in, and they kissed.


End file.
